Today

4) Bought a 2001 Ford F-150 King Ranch with which to haul that decking. It has a 5.4L V8 engine. It has a super crew cab with bucket seats and a console for both the front and back. It has heated leather seats (which are tooled like saddle leather). It has automatic everything (except, oddly, a remote key fob; I’m going to have a remote start and remote lock kit installed). It is 4WD. It has a shell (which I will likely remove for the summer). It is in amazing condition, considering its age. Everyone who has seen it has remarked that the people who buy this truck (which is in the high end of the F150 line) tend to take care of it.

Here it is.

The only things it needs are relatively cheap to have installed. Even though it has power locks and keyless entry, it doesn’t have a remote unlock fob (I suspect I can pick one up from the dealer for cheap). I also want a remote start kit. This will be a good opportunity to take it to my local mechanic and have him look it over. It also needs a CD player (it has a cassette deck!). Other than that, it’s just fine. Maybe I need some truck nuts, though.

I got a fair trade-in on my 1998 Tacoma, considering what it needs (power steering pump, new emergency brake, some paint work). I’m happy with the final cost. I also opted for something I normally avoid: an extended warranty. I don’t drive very much, and so I thought a two year warranty on an 11 year old truck for $25 a month wasn’t a bad deal, considering our experience with Shelley’s Jeep, which got sick a few months after the warranty ended.

I have been thinking about this for a long time, but it wasn’t until recently that he inconvenience of having a two-seater manual vehicle was really apparent. Once Shelley’s Jeep went in the shop, we were left with one vehicle–which she couldn’t drive. That meant that I became her chauffeur. When my sister and brother-in-law were here recently, we wanted to go out to dinner on a night when Shelley was away in her loaner vehicle. I had to bribe a neighbor to drive us.

This solves that problem.

I’ve also grown really tired of having to borrow people’s trucks when I need to haul something. Even though I’m done with concrete for the foreseeable future, I’m not done hauling flagstone or lumber, and I won’t hesitate to load this bed up with stuff.

Perhaps the best thing to come out of all this, though, is that I finally get to park in the driveway.

It has also become clear to me that Shelley is going to take the keys and never give them back to me.

UPDATE: My mom brought an old Ford remote fob thingy with her yesterday. I programmed the truck to respond to it, and so now I have remote keyless entry.

UPDATE 2: Its turns out the thing has a 5-disc CD changer in it, which doesn’t change anything. I still want to hook my iPod up to it, instead. I have also gotten my hands on the keyless entry code, so now I’m not worried about locking the keys in it. Also: the dog does very well in the back, which is nice.